Thursday, December 13, 2012

Helping kids to navigate their feelings


Feelings and emotions are tricky to navigate in young children. They are often hard (or harder) to navigate in adults.
I strongly believe in being given the opportunity to express your feelings and emotions, in a safe and constructive way.
When I was talking about this to a wonderful psychologist friend of mine, she recommended the When I'm Feeling books as she had found them useful with her patients.

The When I'm Feeling series has been designed to help children better understand their feelings. It shares examples of ways to express feelings in a way that is both appropriate and acceptable to everyone.
It helps young children develop skills to identify and manage their feelings. This leads to an increase in confidence and self-esteem.
In the back of each book there are Background Notes for Parents written by child psychologists. Each note helps to explain to parents the importance of self-esteem in children and how they can help with the processing of each of the feelings.
There are eight books in the series, covering angry, lonely, loved, happy, kind, sad, scared and jealous feelings.
We have been reading these books to Little Miss 4 for about two years now and she has always enjoyed them. As she gets older she has begun discussing the different feelings and the things that make her feel a certain way. I am certainly very glad that I bought them.
They are written and illustrated by Trace Moroney. She has released a series with the same adorable bunny, titled The Things I Love.

Have you read this series to your children? Or do you know of anything similar?

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